


We Were Two Until We Melted Down

by mytimehaspassed



Series: Dance On Our Graves Verse [2]
Category: Band of Brothers, The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-23
Updated: 2011-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:06:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roe meets Babe the day that John Julian dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Were Two Until We Melted Down

**WE WERE TWO UNTIL WE MELTED DOWN**  
BAND OF BROTHERS/THE PACIFIC  
Babe/Roe; Roe/Snafu; (implied) Sledge/Snafu  
 **WARNINGS** : Modern era AU; spoilers for the series; mentions of war; character death  
 **NOTES** : This is not quite a sequel, but it's written in the same universe as [We Dance on Our Graves With Our Bodies Below](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/24041.html).

  
Roe meets Babe the day that John Julian dies.

Roe places one of his pale hands on the dark blue of his scrubs, his fingers splayed out right over his heart, and it’s not deliberate, and Babe is looking at him like he wants to cry but doesn’t want to cry, and Roe thinks Babe might do something horrible like scream in the quiet hallways of the hospital where everything smells like antiseptic and death, so he bums a few quarters from one of the nurses on the fourth floor and buys Babe a shitty vending machine coffee and tells him to sit with his head between his knees and breathe in and out for five minutes.

Babe says, “I don’t feel better,” and his voice is rusty and swollen and hard from where it echoes against the tiles.

Roe shrugs and hands him the burning paper cup and Babe drinks it black, swallowing it all in one. Babe’s accent is something of a mystery, although Roe had looked at the aftermath of John Julian’s chart and recognized the hurried scrawl saying something about Pennsylvania, and, it’s Philadelphia, Babe tells him, shifting in his seat and not looking Roe in the eye. Philadelphia, which was a long way from St. Martin Parish, Louisiana and the hospital nestled between two busy highways and the curving back road where John Julian killed himself.

Roe asks something stupid like how they found themselves in Louisiana, and Babe smiles politely and tells him that John Julian – Julian, Babe calls him, his voice hushed beneath the static hum of the hospital, his eyes shining bright under the phosphorescents – had taken a wrong turn somewhere near Lafayette and found himself in St. Martinville, somewhere on a road that he shouldn’t have been driving on, somewhere where the bends were too sharp and the road was too wet, and Babe had been in New Orleans and it had been Mardi Gras and he had been a little drunk and, when the call had come in, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from vomiting all over his clothes, and there had been nothing he could have done, but Roe isn’t dumb enough to say that to somebody with a face as pale as Babe’s right now, so he smiles and asks him what his real name is instead, because nobody in their right mind would have christened their child Babe.

Babe laughs, and it’s the first time Roe hears it, and it’s nice. “Edward,” he says, the paper cup in his hands shaking a little. “But only my mom calls me that.”

Roe smiles, and it’s tired and sweet. “Do you have a place to stay here in town, Edward?”

“Not at the moment, Dr. Roe,” and here Babe pauses and looks up, his eyebrows raised. “Why? Are you propositioning me?”

And Roe chokes on his swallow of coffee and some it spills on to his scrubs and he forgets to tell Babe that he’s not a doctor yet and Babe laughs again, and it’s almost like they’re not meeting each other over the body of one of Babe’s best friends, and Roe coughs and clears his throat and wishes his cheeks weren’t warming under Babe’s gaze. “No,” he says, and his lips are a straight line that he’s trying not to break. “No, Edward, I’m not.”

“Call me Babe,” Babe says, and he slips his hand into Roe’s and says thank you and Roe doesn’t have to ask what for, but he feels this thing inside of him that aches when Babe slips his hand out again and turns to leave.

“You’re welcome,” Roe says, and Babe doesn’t look back.

***

They meet again in the swirling heat of Afghanistan.

Babe tells Roe that it’s been three years since he’s spoken to John Julian’s mother. Babe tells Roe that it’s been six years since he promised John Julian that he would take care of him on the frozen, broken streets of Philly. Babe tells Roe, his voice small and quiet in his ranger grave, swallowed up by the hungry walls of sand, Babe tells Roe that he didn’t even go to John Julian’s funeral and maybe that’s what he regrets most of all, somewhere in the decision to quit school and join the Army and fly thousands of miles to a place he had never seen or heard of with boys he’s never met, maybe what he regrets most is not watching John Julian’s mother cry over the boy he killed.

Roe doesn’t say something stupid like it wasn’t your fault, but only because Babe reaches out his dirty, calloused fingers and Roe takes his hand in his own and they touch for a pulsing, brilliant moment, before the rumble of gunfire and the stilted cries of Roe’s name draw them apart.

***

(They only touch in the desert once, in the chill of the early morning before the sun rises over the horizon, before the boys tucked into their ranger graves raise up out of sleep, and Babe had led Roe around to the other side of the Humvee, where nobody could see him sink to his knees in the sand and pull down the elastic of Roe’s camos and leave a soft, lasting kiss just below his belly button, and Roe had stopped breathing and Babe had moved lower and neither of them had said anything because Babe wasn’t sure how long they could be here before someone moved danger close enough to catch them, and because Roe was swallowing air after handful of air, and because this was Babe’s way of saying thank you, and because Roe wanted nothing more than to keep it pristine and inside of him until the sheen of gratitude was broken with the loud hollering for a medic and his still, strong hands.

After, Babe had looked up at him from where he bent back on his knees and smiled, big and bright and wide. Roe had tried not to smile back, but ultimately failed.)

***

Roe lives and breathes and eats and sleeps alone in the desert. Babe begs him to stop calling him Edward and to huddle around with him and Spina and Bill and tear open the MREs and talk to them like a human being, but Roe smiles politely and makes up some excuse that lets him walk to each Humvee, each tent, and ask about supplies and injuries, checking up on Joe Toye’s fucked foot and George Luz’ easy smile, and he touches everyone with the same medical distance he can’t hold for Babe, and he lets everyone call him Doc.

He doesn’t tell anyone that he was born for this, the hot Louisiana swamp that bred him and his grandmother for healing, the kind of healing that no school could teach. He doesn’t tell anyone that he was raised for this, pulling all kinds of hurt into somewhere deep inside himself, pulling all kinds of hurt out of the boys who lay seeping blood over the red sand, the boys who look up at him and say things like please, the boys who all look like Edward Heffron when Roe closes his eyes at night. Roe’s grandmother had taught him Cajun prayers and he says them over his hands every night, says them under his breath and over and over and forgets how to speak English sometimes, forgets how to say things in that dull, accented way he knows, forgets what it’s like to speak in words that don’t heal.

Babe calls him Gene and whispers breathlessly close to his ear and from a distance it looks like nothing more than two boys in camouflage almost touching but not touching, and Roe often wonders why Babe lilts this close to him, looks at him with soft eyes, begging eyes, wants to touch Roe just as much as Roe wants to touch him, but he never asks Babe why, and it might be because he doesn’t want to hear the answer, or it might be because he doesn’t want Babe to look him in the eye and promise something like a lie.

Babe calls him Gene and doesn’t touch him with his dirty fingers, but Roe knows that he wants to and Roe wants him to too, and that they’re as fucked as the desert is, pressing close together and pretending that they don’t want to kiss.

Babe says, “Gene?”

And Roe says, “Yes?”

And Babe says, “They’re calling you.”

And Roe goes.

***

Babe doesn’t speak much of John Julian the farther into the desert they go, and Roe doesn’t press. All the boys know of John Julian and the winding roads of Louisiana and the boy that he left behind, and something sharp inside of Roe feels almost jealous sometimes, the times that Babe looks haunted and small and ready to shed blood, when Roe is the farthest thing from his mind, when there’s nothing but the dirt and dust and heat of war, and Roe doesn’t ask God to keep Babe safe, but he wants to be the one who should.

***

(Roe kills with precision.

They all do.)

***

They meet up with Marines in Iraq, and Roe finds Merriell Shelton skinny and tan and looking up at him with his dark hand over his eyes, and Roe quirks his mouth into something that could be called a smile and Snafu holds his breath and then lets it out in one long, unintelligible curse. Roe laughs, and it’s even and pure, and they don’t talk about their families and they don’t talk about how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other and they don’t talk about Louisiana and the hold she has on both of her children, on all of her children, the boys bred for something more than what they’ve got, and they don’t touch each other even though they ache to do so, and when Babe catches up with them both, his easy smile and white hands, Roe forgets his manners and tells him that he’ll be there in a bit because there’s something that he needs to do first.

Snafu smiles, and it’s not exactly pleasant, but Babe shrugs and says okay, anyway, his boots leaving heavy imprints in the dirt. Roe doesn’t look back.

***

They fuck in one of the empty corners of an officer’s tent, with Snafu biting and licking the sweat from the junction of Roe’s collarbone, and Roe gripping so tight onto skin that his knuckles are burning bright white in the dark, and neither of them speak, and it’s not perfect, and they press into each other and pull out again, and it hurts and it doesn’t, and both of them want this so badly it terrifies them. Snafu mutters someone else’s name into the rise of Roe’s spine and Roe pictures Babe’s mouth on him that one time in the dark, and Snafu keeps threading his fingers through Roe’s and Roe keeps letting him, and it’s both dangerous and stupid, which is enough of an exciting combination that they don’t let go until the drift of a conversation comes floating over them from somewhere close by.

Roe clears his throat and pulls away, tugging up his camos and running a dry hand through his wet hair. Snafu spreads a wry smile across his face and leans back against some cargo boxes, open and exposed. “Merci, cher,” he says, and his French is a rugged tangle of cynicism.

Roe can’t open his mouth for fear of what might come out, an apology or something close to it, can’t open his mouth because he won’t let himself pick apart the reasons why he shouldn’t have done this, why he shouldn’t have let himself do this, because he knows Snafu will do it for him, and do it better. He bites his lip until it bleeds, and Snafu laughs from his sprawl on the boxes, but neither of them finds it funny.

***

(Snafu introduces Roe to a thin, red-haired boy named Sledge, and Roe recognizes the name as the one Snafu had mouthed against him, and Roe sees it written on them both, and he smiles, tightlipped and clinical, and Snafu says nothing about where they met or who they are, and if it’s because he’s shielding Sledge from Roe or Roe from Sledge, neither of them know. Roe makes excuses and finds Babe somewhere in the midst of a military crowd, and uses the sweltering push of the masses to align himself against Babe’s side, and they smell like sweat and dirt and the dry, humid air of the desert, and if Babe notices the swollen bite marks collaring Roe’s neck, he doesn’t say anything, his fingers brushing against Roe’s fingers again and again and again.

Roe never tells Babe about Snafu.

Babe never asks.)

***

They leave the war the same way they arrived. They run on adrenaline and slow, shallow, shattered faiths, and they sit next to each other on the way back to base and don’t say anything, and the boys surrounding them joke and laugh and feel gutted and it’s not the war but it is the war, and none of them cry or show gratitude when the people in the airport clap and cheer, their steps ringing hollow on the floor. It is the war and it isn’t the war, and Babe buys them a cheap motel room somewhere near the airport and they go AWOL for twenty-four hours and touch each other for the first time stateside since Louisiana and John Julian, and even then that was only Babe’s hand on Roe’s hand, and even then both of them had wanted more and didn’t know how to ask for it, and even then Babe had left his heart somewhere in St Martin Parish, and Roe had forgotten what it felt like to be loved.

Babe kisses him against the door, and Roe lets him, and they move into each other and slide together and push and pull, and Roe walks Babe backwards until Babe’s knees hit the bed and they tumble and fall and laugh, and their teeth clash together and Babe bites Roe’s broken lip, and they taste like soap and blood, and it’s nothing like the grit of Afghanistan, which Babe doesn’t think he’ll ever miss, but it’s not perfect, either. Roe pulls his shirt over his head and gets stuck and Babe helps him out, his mouth kissing skin between bouts of rakish laughter, and Babe toes his shoes off before he pulls down his pants but forgets to take off his socks, which, later, Roe will tease him about, his mouth close to Babe’s temple, his lips swollen and red.

Roe calls him Edward until Babe tells him to shut up, which Roe does when Babe wraps himself around him so tight Roe can’t breathe, let alone talk, and there’s nothing between them but skin, and it’s everything and it’s nothing, because neither one of them will ever admit to being more scared here than in combat, closer to each other than they’ve ever been to anyone. Roe calls him Edward and Babe closes his mouth in a kiss, and it’s nothing and it’s everything, and it’s never been perfect, but it’s all that they have.

***

They come home scarred and broken and left to pick up the pieces of themselves they never knew they had, and maybe they have each other, and maybe they have help, but it’s not enough, it will never be enough, and Roe will become a doctor in Louisiana and Babe will go back to his parents in Philly, and they will have what they had and they might grow up and regret everything they never tried but at least they won’t lose this, this thing between them that helped them stay human in a place no one could, with Roe’s dirty, bloody hands and the boys he sees when he closes his eyes, the boys who look like Babe and sound like Babe and bleed like Babe, the boys he will never forgot but have already forgotten because not even Roe knew every soldier’s name, not even Roe knew every corpse’s face. At least they will have this, this thing, where Babe leans against Roe and Roe leans back, in the early morning of the motel with nothing flickering but the staticky TV, where they kiss and touch and breathe soft against each other, and at least they will have this even if they have nothing else.

It is the war and it isn’t the war, and maybe that’s why Roe leaves quiet when Babe finally falls asleep, slipping out of bed and into his clothes and out into the chill of the United States, where everything he owns fits into a backpack, where nothing has ever been as clear and sharp as the desert. He follows orders back to base and then leaves on the first plane to Louisiana, the first plane home, where his grandmother greets him by the door with her small smile and her healing hands, where the world smells like thick heat and the corrugated aftertaste of the swamp, where he doesn’t laugh or cry or break down like they told him he would.

Babe doesn’t call, but neither does Roe, and maybe he deserves it after he left without saying goodbye, maybe he never deserved this, this thing that they had, and it’s only catching up to him now, on land that he was born to instead of the dirt and dust and grit of a place nobody asked to go. It’s everything, but most importantly it’s nothing, and Roe’s not sure which one he has a right to, which one his prayers were asking for every night under the mask of foreign stars and broken bodies and hands that never worked like they were supposed to, and Roe’s not sure which one he’s allowed.

And maybe Roe’s not sure which one he wants.

***

(Babe finds him in Louisiana.

Like Roe always knew he would.)


End file.
